Optimisation of grease cleaning is an ongoing task in the field of hand dishwashing. Consumers utilizing liquid detergent as a light-duty liquid dishwashing detergent composition tend to wash greasy, difficult to clean items at the end of their washing experience, after easier to clean items such as glasses and flatware are cleaned. Light-duty liquid dishwashing detergent compositions require a high suds profile while providing grease cleaning.
Recent trend has been to develop hand dishwashing compositions which provide effective cleaning and as well some hand care benefits. For example, Henkel WO2007/028571 discloses liquid aqueous cleaning products for hard surfaces, in particular for manual dishwashing, comprising an active with a beneficial effect on skin sensation that can be selected from sensorial actives and/or actives with a positive biological effect. Lion JP2005-179438 describes a liquid detergent composition for kitchen which reduces hand skin problems caused by detergents, prevents hand skin surface from becoming hard and keeps the hand skin in a fresh condition by using a plant extract, a polyhydric alcohol and a surfactant.
The object of the present invention is to provide compositions which are still very effective in grease cleaning while providing as well excellent hand mildness. It has been found that the specific anionic surfactant system of the present invention will provide the excellent cleaning required from a hand dishwashing liquid composition while being very soft and gentle to the hands. It has been further found that the pearlescent agent of the present invention such as those having a plate like structure e.g. mica, would participate to the skin benefit by their action in skin color correction and on skin gloss correction. The interference with light provided by the pearlescent agent contributes to the correction of colors and of the skin gloss via an adjustment of reflective property of skin. Therefore, it has been found that the combination of the pearlescent agent and the specific anionic surfactant system of the present invention provide superior hand care benefit together with superior grease cleaning.
It is another advantage of the composition of the present invention to communicate to the consumer that such product will indeed provide the claimed hand care benefit. The addition of the pearlescent agent will indeed provide an excellent aesthetics that will communicate to the consumer the benefit of superior skin mildness. The rheology modifier of the present invention will provide a very stable suspension of the pearlescent agent and thereby improved aesthetics to the product.